Sixth Comma Meantone

Hi All! I wanted to share some impressions I have gotten from using sixth comma meantone playing the Telemann Sonata in F minor for bassoon and harpsichord. It's had my attention for some time, but previously it was more intellectual.

Now, having practiced for months, using a combination of new fingerings and adhesive tape to reshape the tone holes, I am really comfortable. I write this following the second rehearsal with harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky for the American Festival of Microtonal Music concert on Saturday at the Church of St. Luke in the Field.

First off checking pitch is easy when you play in the crook of the harpsichord. Each bassoon note elicits a sympathetic resonant pitch from the matching strings.

Usually, this piece, while a staple of the bassoon repertoire, is rather vapid and mechanical sounding. When played in equal temperament, the piece is distorted into a more figureless attainment. The piece is so pedagoguically devised that it is difficult to practice the last movement without first playing through the first three, each and every time.

The piece starts with an outlined F minor chord. Sort of like an alap in north Indian music. The harpsichord requires a tuned Db (instead of a more usual C#) and an Ab (instead of the more usual G#). The piece has its own style, similar to what I have found for playing Bach (which is in Werckmeister III, imho). While once I avoided doing Telemann for all the transcriptions, I now recognize that Telemann's music would the same in any key because it is truly based on the composer's plan for a fully extended sixth comma meantone.

I learned to do this all with playing over a tonic C drone. Notes to crack more often and I must have even greater control. My instrument has some advantages ove the old baroque instruments for the trills. It really feels a lot like singing and the time frame is more fluid just as the intervals are not equal. I hope some of you reading this come to the NYC Greenwich Village concert. If not, please spread the word.

Johnny Reinhard

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Afmmjr@... wrote:
>
> Hi All! I wanted to share some impressions I have gotten from using
sixth comma meantone playing the Telemann Sonata in F minor for
bassoon and harpsichord. It's had my attention for some time, but
previously it was more intellectual.
>
> Now, having practiced for months, using a combination of new
fingerings and adhesive tape to reshape the tone holes, I am really
comfortable. I write this following the second rehearsal with
harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky for the American Festival of
Microtonal Music concert on Saturday at the Church of St. Luke in the
Field.
>
> First off checking pitch is easy when you play in the crook of the
harpsichord. Each bassoon note elicits a sympathetic resonant pitch
from the matching strings.
>
> Usually, this piece, while a staple of the bassoon repertoire, is
rather vapid and mechanical sounding. When played in equal
temperament, the piece is distorted into a more figureless attainment.
The piece is so pedagoguically devised that it is difficult to
practice the last movement without first playing through the first
three, each and every time.
>
> The piece starts with an outlined F minor chord. Sort of like an
alap in north Indian music. The harpsichord requires a tuned Db
(instead of a more usual C#) and an Ab (instead of the more usual G#).
The piece has its own style, similar to what I have found for playing
Bach (which is in Werckmeister III, imho). While once I avoided doing
Telemann for all the transcriptions, I now recognize that Telemann's
music would the same in any key because it is truly based on the
composer's plan for a fully extended sixth comma meantone.
>

While the piece probably sounds fine in extended meantone, I highly
doubt that that was what Telemann expected on the keyboard; also that
it would be appropriate for the bassoon to match the harpsichord
intonation of every note. Usually the melody instrument should play
mostly pure intervals above the bass.

The bass line should also be played by a viola da gamba or 'cello, to
make up the standard basso continuo group. Telemann didn't write for
bassoon & harpsichord, he wrote for bassoon & continuo.

Telemann's 55-system was explained near the end of his life, and he
called it a *new* system. We can hardly believe that most of his music
had been written for a system which he had not yet invented and which
no-one knew about yet. Clearly it was also not a keyboard tuning -
rather it was a system for singers and instrumentalists.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/telemann.html

A keyboard player would have found it most convenient to use a tuning
which would work in *all* commonly used keys, not just one or two. A
circular, modified 1/6 comma meantone (similar to temperament
ordinaire) would fit the bill quite well for tonalities ranging from
four flats to four sharps, and would also produce interesting
differences in intonation between different keys. Werckmeister
described a similar sort of tuning in his treatise on figured bass. F
minor would have a specially expressive character on the keyboard,
because the Ab would be rather flat, though not as flat as G# in 1/6
comma. Possibly the bassoon should take this into account and make Ab
a little flatter than pure.

It might be interesting to see what notes actually come out of a
Baroque bassoon (though of course there is a lot of leeway for taking
them up and down by lip & lung pressure) and whether Ab and G# usually
had different fingerings.

I can't see the 55-system making any sense at all as a keyboard tuning
for Telemann's works - simply because he wrote in a large variety of
keys which would make it extremely impractical to render each one in
1/6 comma meantone. Suppose the harpsichordist was called upon to
accompany a violin sonata in A major in the same program??

Retuning only makes practical sense if the number of strings to be
retuned is very limited. Typically in the 17th century due to the
limited range of modulation of most pieces only Eb/D# (possibly G#/Ab)
would ever need to be touched. Of course if some kind of circular
tuning is the norm there is no need to retune anything.

Sorry to throw cold water, but I think F minor *ought* to sound
different from other keys.

~~~T~~~

Thanks for the insights Johnny, often such experience goes on without any record and the knowledge gained disappears.
>
> Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 19:02:07 -0500
> From: Afmmjr@aol.com
> Subject: Sixth Comma Meantone
>
> Hi All! I wanted to share some impressions I have gotten from using sixth comma meantone playing the Telemann Sonata in F minor for bassoon and harpsichord. It's had my attention for some time, but previously it was more intellectual.
> > Now, having practiced for months, using a combination of new fingerings and adhesive tape to reshape the tone holes, I am really comfortable. I write this following the second rehearsal with harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky for the American Festival of Microtonal Music concert on Saturday at the Church of St. Luke in the Field.
> > First off checking pitch is easy when you play in the crook of the harpsichord. Each bassoon note elicits a sympathetic resonant pitch from the matching strings.
> > Usually, this piece, while a staple of the bassoon repertoire, is rather vapid and mechanical sounding. When played in equal temperament, the piece is distorted into a more figureless attainment. The piece is so pedagoguically devised that it is difficult to practice the last movement without first playing through the first three, each and every time.
> > The piece starts with an outlined F minor chord. Sort of like an alap in north Indian music. The harpsichord requires a tuned Db (instead of a more usual C#) and an Ab (instead of the more usual G#). The piece has its own style, similar to what I have found for playing Bach (which is in Werckmeister III, imho). While once I avoided doing Telemann for all the transcriptions, I now recognize that Telemann's music would the same in any key because it is truly based on the composer's plan for a fully extended sixth comma meantone.
> > I learned to do this all with playing over a tonic C drone. Notes to crack more often and I must have even greater control. My instrument has some advantages ove the old baroque instruments for the trills. It really feels a lot like singing and the time frame is more fluid just as the intervals are not equal. I hope some of you reading this come to the NYC Greenwich Village concert. If not, please spread the word.
> > Johnny Reinhard > >
>
> > -- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island <http://anaphoria.com/>
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU <http://www.kxlu.com/main.html> 88.9 FM Wed 8-9 pm Los Angeles

Hi Tom,
We have covered lots on these issues on the List. It is my chosen profession
to perform early music in intonation that is informed. And we do disagree on
several points. (Thanks, Kraig!)

TD: While the piece probably sounds fine in extended meantone, I highly
doubt that that was what Telemann expected on the keyboard; also that
it would be appropriate for the bassoon to match the harpsichord
intonation of every note. Usually the melody instrument should play
mostly pure intervals above the bass.

JR: This is fairly nonsensical to me. Firstly, every Baroque piece has a
harpsichord or other keyboard instrument (except the obvious exceptions).
I disagree that a player should feel the ability to intentionally match pitch
to each and every note of the requisite keyboard is undesirable. It is par
for the course for a flexible instrument to match pitch an inflexible one.

TD: The bass line should also be played by a viola da gamba or 'cello, to
make up the standard basso continuo group. Telemann didn't write for
bassoon & harpsichord, he wrote for bassoon & continuo.

JR: I guess challenging the "standard" is a recurrent theme for me. But in this
case, because of the lower tessitura of the solo instrument, it was felt that the
balance would be off with a second bass instrument, and basically unnecessary.

TD: Telemann's 55-system was explained near the end of his life, and he
called it a *new* system. We can hardly believe that most of his music
had been written for a system which he had not yet invented and which
no-one knew about yet.

JR: Telemann wrote of an extended sixth comma meantone that could both explain
his music while charting a course for future composers (perhaps most notably, Mozart).
I don't feel you respect Telemann enough or you would never believe that Telemann was
merely writing for a future that he would not be a part. The reasons he never mentioned
the fully closed system of 55-tone ET is because he was practical enough to avoid the most
obscure intervallic relations.

TD: Clearly it was also not a keyboard tuning -
rather it was a system for singers and instrumentalists.

JR: This is silly. Everything was involved with a keyboard in the Baroque, everything.
One can't segregate the other instruments out. The repertoire does not permit it. And to
rationalize an intentional playing out of tune to the keyboard is, or to consider it
acceptable and expected, leads me to a simple question for you; does the music itself count
for anything? I think you haven't availed yourself that the wisdom produced by
performance yields.

TD:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/doc/telemann.html

JR: Thanks for that. Coincidentally, Manuel got his copy of the Telemann from me soon after I
found a copy in old East Berlin. We were together in Rotterdam and I simply pulled it out of a
collection of old books. Spooky, since we had just talked about it.

TD: A keyboard player would have found it most convenient to use a tuning
which would work in *all* commonly used keys, not just one or two. A
circular, modified 1/6 comma meantone (similar to temperament
ordinaire) would fit the bill quite well for tonalities ranging from
four flats to four sharps, and would also produce interesting
differences in intonation between different keys.

JR: Again, sorry, to me, silly. No way Jose would I disregard a composer's own
intonation scheme - regardless at what time it was described in the composer's
life - for a modern imposition that looks like it works. It's just not possible
for me. When info exist of a primary nature, as it does with Telemann, go for it.
Tom, it's not like the area of performance has been explored much.

TD: Werckmeister described a similar sort of tuning in his treatise on figured
bass. Fminor would have a specially expressive character on the keyboard,because
the Ab would be rather flat, though not as flat as G# in 1/6
comma. Possibly the bassoon should take this into account and make Ab
a little flatter than pure.

JR: Of course, we have discussed Werkmeister is some detail on the List. However,
I would not "make" Ab flat, it would simply be at the same pitch as that of the keyboard.

As it turns out, Saturday's AFMM concert also features W. F. Bach's "Sonata for 2 harpsichords
in F major" and the harpsichordis with retune 2 pitches on the harpsichord during intermission.
I have seen harpsichordist retune an entire harpsichord in Werckmeister III in 15 minutes, which
is what is stated by Werckmeister himself, and is reputed of J.S. Bach. 2 pitches should be
nothing at all.

TD: It might be interesting to see what notes actually come out of a
Baroque bassoon (though of course there is a lot of leeway for taking
them up and down by lip & lung pressure) and whether Ab and G# usually
had different fingerings.

JR: They did (Ab and G#) have different fingerings on the flutes made
by Quantz for Frederick the Great. On the bassoon, one can put get the
Ab by using the low Eb key (#13) or the low D key (#9), which were
available to Baroque players. Actually, one can get any discrete pitch
out of a bassoon, just like a trombone, or a cello.

TD: I can't see the 55-system making any sense at all as a keyboard tuning
for Telemann's works - simply because he wrote in a large variety of
keys which would make it extremely impractical to render each one in
1/6 comma meantone. Suppose the harpsichordist was called upon to
accompany a violin sonata in A major in the same program??

JR: See above. Retuning a couple of notes is not difficult. Especially
in our concert because there is a second harpsichord already pretuned to
the F major version, out of an extended sixth comma gamut of pitches.

TD: Retuning only makes practical sense if the number of strings to be
retuned is very limited. Typically in the 17th century due to the
limited range of modulation of most pieces only Eb/D# (possibly G#/Ab)
would ever need to be touched. Of course if some kind of circular
tuning is the norm there is no need to retune anything.

Sorry to throw cold water, but I think F minor *ought* to sound
different from other keys.

~~~T~~~

JR: I just wanted to give you feedback because it really is
making a difference in a musician's understanding of how to play Telemann.

Some of us were remarking how Telemann doesn't seem to have a "style" set
in the mind of the modern player (unlike JS Bach or Vivaldi or Handel). Yet,
Telemann was the champion composer of his time in popularity.
However, when played in sixth comma meantone, likely the most popular
German meantone of them all in the 18th century, there is genuine truth to tell,
through the performance.

All best, Johnny Reinhard

> Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:16:26 -0500
> From: Afmmjr@aol.com
>Subject: Sixth Comma Meantone
>(...)
>I have seen harpsichordist retune an entire harpsichord in >Werckmeister III in 15 minutes, which
>is what is stated by Werckmeister himself, and is reputed of J.S. >Bach. 2 pitches should be
>nothing at all.

Let's clarify a few things on this.

- "Werckmeister III" is not a harpsichord temperament at all, but was rather specified by Werckmeister for organs.

- It's not reputed of JSB that he retuned an entire harpsichord in Werckmeister III in 15 minutes. It's reputed that JSB tuned entire harpsichords in 15 minutes, with nothing said one way or the other about W-III *ever* in any of his practice.

- To tune an entire hpsi in 15 minutes is really not such a remarkable thing. I do mine in under 10, as usual practice, and so do other harpsichordists of my acquaintance. All by ear, starting from a single tuning fork. One need only use a simple-enough system to set the basic bearing octave(s) in 3 or 4 minutes; and then copy unisons and octaves everywhere. I can set up *any* of the systems I've presented here
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/practical.html
in well under 15, and I don't consider that to be a terribly rare or noteworthy thing; just basic skill to be a serious harpsichordist. Like any other crafty skill, it just takes training and practice and confidence to work up to that fluency.

- Some of my own practical remarks about 1/6 comma are here:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/larips/meantone.html

p.s. I did my Italian virginal in regular 1/4 comma yesterday, in under 6 minutes.

Brad Lehman
http://www.larips.com